I have been reading “The Power” by Rhonda Byrne, the author of the Best Selling book and movie, “The Secret.” This will be a book I’ll re-read every six months, if not sooner, to remind myself of the simple, yet life changing, concepts she illustrates.

I wanted to share some life lessons (or Points of Power as she calls them) that she teaches in this powerful new sequel. They are ancient biblical truths, things your mamma probably taught you. Things we all understand are “nice” to encompass into our lives. Yet, I bet many of us don’t really realize the impact these simple truths make on our own happiness and success in life.

Here’s the First Life Lesson:

Don’t gossip.

Ever heard that one? I bet you have heard this golden rule. Yet, it seems harmless enough, and if any harm is done, you think the harm is what is done to the person you are gossiping about.

“Gossip is not harmful to the person who is being spoken of; gossip harms those gossiping!” states Bryne.

She repeatedly speaks throughout the book of “What you give, is what you receive.” When you gossip, you give out negativity. That puts you in a place where that negativity comes back to you, multiplied, which affects your level of happiness.

Good and successful things only come to us when we have good feelings and we are operating out of The Power. We can’t have good feelings when we are gossiping. So the next time you hear someone gossiping or you’re doing it yourself, stop it quickly, and infuse a good thought about the person into the conversation instead.

Remember what you give to others, you really give to yourself. What you give is what you attract back. So be sure you are doing everything to attract the good things in life.

It sure seems easy enough to understand and implement. But take the next few days to really pay attention to the things you say or think about another. You may be surprised, like I was, about how often your actions may be magnetizing back to you the negative things in life because your thoughts aren’t pure.

Good thoughts + good feelings = good things come to you.

Next Life Lesson will address Jealousy.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Second Life Lesson of “The Power”
• The Right Financial Mindset
• Enjoy the Process
• Perspective
• Vacuum Law of Prosperity

One free, easy way to promote your home business is through the inclusion of email signatures in your outgoing email messages. Typically your email signature will consist of a short, attention-catching phrase and one or two URL links to a website that promotes you and your home business.

To enhance convenience and efficiency, you want to have preset email signatures that are included automatically with each email message you send. Unfortunately, Gmail (my email provider of choice), is limited on using HTML coding to create anything “cool” in your signature line.

However, I was recently introduced to a trendy Add-on for Mozilla’s Firefox (my browser of choice) that works with Google’s Gmail email platform. This free download called WiseStamp, is a signature creator that allows you to empower your email signatures with nifty features such as

• Automatic signature insertion
• Icons linking to various Social Media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Icons linking to various Instant Messaging profiles, like Google Talk, Skype, and AIM
• Add a logo or personalized image
• Share the music you love
• Advertise your current items from your eBay store
• Share the RSS Feed to your blog posts
• Insert daily random quotes
• Share your upcoming events
• Create colored or enhanced font
• Multiple email signatures for personal and business use

Check out the WiseStamp Add-on and play around with the various features to come up with an awesome, customized email signature for yourself. Give your email audience a way to connect with you and learn more about what your home business is doing.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Step Back to Go Forward
• Enjoy the Process
• Essential Quality of Effective Leadership
• “Remarkable Motivation Secret – Hint, It’s Not Related to Money”
• Were you serious about that?

Thank you to all those that have served or are currently serving our country, as well as the families that are daily affected by the absence of their loved ones while they sacrifice to protect the rest of us.

“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.” ~~ Elmer Davis

Possibly Related Posts:

• Secretariat – Big Risk, Big Reward
• What Will You Be
• How much are your dreams worth?
• Power of Song
• Leader’s Liability

This weekend I saw the Disney movie, “Secretariat.” What a great testimonial about taking big risks and following your dream, even when others don’t believe in you or what you want to accomplish.

While we know the story of Secretariat, the Triple Crown champion, most of us haven’t been exposed to the story of the courageous woman who owned the legendary race horse.

The movie shares the story of Penny Chenery Tweedy taking over the Virgina horse farm of her ailing father, despite the obstacles she would face.  Tweedy was a housewife who left her family in Denver, had little experience with horse breeding and horse racing, was a female in a male dominated industry, and received no support from her brother and husband who felt the best financial move was to sell the horse farm to stave off financial disaster.

Tweedy was faced with big risks in making the decision to keep the horse farm, but she believed she could make it happen with an unproven race horse she called “Big Red.”   Despite the fear and uncertainty, and with no guarantee of Secretariat’s success, she held onto her faith in her judgment to surround herself with those who had the knowledge and skills she lacked and her ability to think out side the box to solve her financial difficulties.  Even when her precarious plan wasn’t coming to fruition and she received considerable rejection, she still carried on with her belief in her dream.

It’s a great story about a remarkable race horse and the tenacious woman who took big risks, and as a result, achieved big rewards.

Do you find some similarities with this story and your home business? Perhaps you have felt rejected by prospects, not supported by family, unskilled and lacking knowledge, and not financially capable of making an investment in your dream.  Have you encountered fear and doubt about the path you have chosen?  This historical narrative is a good reminder to never let others take your dream from you.  If you are willing to take big risks, you’ll gain big rewards.

I have included the recording of Secretariat winning the third race of the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes in 1973.  Incredible, just amazing to see this footage 37 years after it was filmed.  Take a few minutes to check it out and then make a commitment to yourself that you’ll follow your dream, no matter what!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Veterans Day Tribute
• What Will You Be
• How much are your dreams worth?
• Power of Song
• Leader’s Liability

Manage Time

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst” ~~ William Penn

I don’t have enough time.

Have you heard that one, either from a business partner you are coaching or perhaps too frequently from yourself?

Be honest, do you find yourself saying this in regards to effectively working your home business?

Is it that other successful business owners are afforded the luxury of MORE time than you?  No, we are all given the same number of hours in a day … 24 hours, no more, no less.

So what is it that allows some entrepreneurs to seemingly and effortlessly have more time to make things happen in their business?

I want to share with you that it’s not about finding more time, but rather it is about prioritizing your efforts to accomplish the things that matter most.  Prioritizing involves making choices about what you will engage in and what you will eliminate, determining what adds value to your business and what does not.

It’s easy to waste time when you don’t have a central mission statement or a clear definition of your goals. Have you determined what your objectives are with your business, what is it that is most important for you to achieve? Does your activity align with those goals?  Those are the essential activities you need to prioritize in your schedule.

“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got” ~~ Lee Iacocca

It’s easy to waste time when you aren’t conscious about where you are investing your time.  Spend some time really thinking about what activities you engage in on a daily basis and ask if that time will honestly move you toward your business goal.  Don’t confuse busyness with really viable effort.  Just “doing” isn’t enough; it has to be “doing the right things.”

Use technology to improve the management of your time but don’t let it consume you and in affect lessen the productivity that it was meant to enhance. Monitor the time you spend online in various social mediums like email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  When you are there to do business, get the business objectives accomplished and then move on. Don’t get distracted by things that won’t move your business forward.  Use a timer to keep you focused and on target with what needs to be done in a timely manner.

I hope this helps you understand that making more time isn’t a possibility, but making more time for the right things is, not only a possibility, but a necessity.  Determine your goals, prioritize your activity around the things that will help you achieve those goals, and don’t get distracted by the things that won’t.

Success is inevitable when you master this skill.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Free Yourself from Email
• Manage Your Time
• The Value of Time
• “Make Every Minute Count”
• Organize Your Home Office Day

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
~~ CS Lewis

I love the stories of highly paid executives who gave up their prestigious jobs in order to pursue a new career … often making only a fraction of their previous salaries. But it was something they always dreamed of doing, so they went for “the new dream job.”

Like Jeff, an investment manager, who quit and went back to school in order to fulfill his dream of being a high school math teacher. Or like Michelle who quit a corporate marketing job to become the writer she always wanted to be.

Could you do that?  Could you give up the security to follow your dreams?

Would you let the “what ifs” haunt you and continue to defer your dream?  Or would you step into what you always really wanted to do?

Would you let what others think stop you from making it happen?  Or would you have the courage to pursue your dream anyways?

Would you let already having spent years and thousands of dollars following an educational and career path deter you from starting over?  Or would you have the strength to change lanes late in the game?

I so admire those that can follow their passion and re-invent themselves in order to stay true to who they really are.

Men and women who have followed their hearts and made these kinds of career changes often say they have no regrets.  To them it was not about the money or the prestige but about doing the work they feel they were always meant to do. They would have regret NOT taking the risk to finding their authentic self.

How about you — are you living your authentic self? Or do you need to dream a new dream?

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” ~~ John Barrymore

Possibly Related Posts:

• Vacuum Law of Prosperity
• “Remarkable Motivation Secret – Hint, It’s Not Related to Money”
• Success – What’s it Mean to You
• “The Choices You Make Today”
• Your Hearts Desire

Today, I received some really good advice from a parenting newsletter I subscribe to called Connected Families.  I thought the information was so transcending of the parenting world and applicable to the business world as well that I wanted to share their meaningful thoughts with you.

Excerpt from the article, “Making Forward Progress Starts by Stepping Back,” by Jim and Lynne Jackson.

“The Minnesota Vikings just landed Randy Moss, so I’m in a football mood. In order for Brett Favre to make good progress and good passes to Moss requires a really important move. Every quarterback knows this. The first move a quarterback makes every time he gets that ball is to take steps backward. Whether handing off, passing, or even running a sneak (it’s true, I just watched a dozen youtube videos and the QB always takes at least a small step backwards before plunging ahead). These backward steps get the QB out of the immediate grasp of the looming trouble on the other side of the line, and gives him a chance to survey what’s happening downfield before making his choices.

All too often in our attempts to solve things quickly, we dive in with a lot of energy, without having first surveyed “the field.” So if you find yourself in a hurried state, consider taking a few steps back before charging in. This might mean for just a few seconds, to breathe a bit and see if any creative ideas come. Or it might mean taking your own little “time out” to ask yourself some important questions before trying to make progress.

We have seen over and over again that when parents step back, “survey the field” and take a more patient and thoughtful approach, they make more “forward progress” in the football game of parenting.”

I love this analogy.  Do you see how this approach of stepping back to go forward applies to your home business?

Do you need to stop rushing forward without forethought and instead take the time to survey the field first?  To analyze your game plan and determine the best connections downfield to meet your objectives?

Comment below on how you can see the similarities between football and your home business.  And go ahead and state your opinion on the return of Moss to the Vikings.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Email Signatures in Gmail
• Enjoy the Process
• Essential Quality of Effective Leadership
• “Remarkable Motivation Secret – Hint, It’s Not Related to Money”
• Were you serious about that?

What will you BE?

I choose to be More Intentional.

Decide after checking out this short 2 minute motivational video – Overcoming Adversity.

Make the Impossible Possible

Possibly Related Posts:

• Veterans Day Tribute
• Secretariat – Big Risk, Big Reward
• How much are your dreams worth?
• Power of Song
• Leader’s Liability